Wednesday, 26 January 2011

A question about Girard: is he doing metaphysics or phenomenology? If he is doing metaphysics (people talks about Girard's 'anthropology', for example), is he placing violence and its roots in mimetic desire in the very nature of being human? And what might that mean?

When we do metaphysics, are we discussing 'pure human nature' or 'human beings as they actually are'? The latter would mean that the data would include grace and redemption, if these obtain.

Might it not Lonergan's method of approximation be useful here? First approximation: the pure line of progress ('human nature'); second approximation: distortion by sin, mimetic desire, violence; third approximation: human beings as they actually are - including the factor of redemption.

Even so: would Girard place mimetic desire in the first approximation or in the second? But perhaps this is a question that might not arise on his approach.

Sunday, 16 January 2011

My impression is that, while De Smet in 1953 defended the thesis that Sankara was a srutivadin, and while he discovered in him a theory of analogy (laksana) that corresponded closely to the intrinsic analogy of Aquinas, he had not as yet come clearly to the affirmation that Sankara was not an acosmist. This needs to be confirmed by a reading of the text of his dissertation.

By 1964/68 (his article for Religious Hinduism) - and perhaps already in 1958 (the first edition of this article) - he is certainly maintaining that Sankara is not an acosmist. The notes (Guidelines in Indian Philosophy), which bear a 1968 date on the front page, also bear this out quite abundantly.

It might be another interesting study to find out the position of the Calcutta School of Catholic Indologists on the matter. What did Johanns and Dandoy think? Pessein? Etc.